Oath and Crown

Co-written with historical fiction and non-fiction author, Matthew Willis, the Oath and Crown series centres on the events surrounding and leading up to the battle of Hastings in 1066, where two cultures clash over the English throne, and one will disappear forever.

An Argument of Blood (Oath and Crown #1)

William, the nineteen-year-old duke of Normandy, is enjoying the full fruits of his station. Life is a succession of hunts, feasts, and revels, with little attention paid to the welfare of his vassals. Tired of the young duke’s dissolute behaviour
and ashamed of his illegitimate birth, a group of traitorous barons force their way into his castle. While William survives their assassination attempt, his days of leisure are over. He’ll need help from the king of France to secure his dukedom
from the rebels.

On the other side of the English Channel lives ten-year-old Ælfgifa, the malformed and unwanted youngest sister to the Anglo-Saxon Jarl, Harold Godwinson. Ælfgifa discovers powerful rivalries in the heart of the state when her sister Ealdgyth is given in a political marriage to King Edward, and she finds herself caught up in intrigues and political manoeuvring as powerful men vie for influence. Her path will collide with William’s, and both must fight to shape the future.

An Argument of Blood is the first of two sweeping historical novels on the life and battles of William the Conqueror.

A Black Matter for the King (Oath and Crown #2)

Stranded in Falaise, a political hostage as insurance of her father and brother’s good behaviour to Edward the Confessor, Ælfgifa forms an unlikely friendship with William, Duke of Normandy. William has been quick to recognise her skills and swift to exploit them to his own advantage. However, unbeknownst to the duke, Gifa is her brother, Harold Godwinson’s spy, sent in part to assess the power held by a potential rival for the English throne. Homesick and alienated by the women of the Norman court, Gifa watches the duke and gains his trust, torn between the loyalty and duty she owes her family and her own sense of moral obligation.

William, meanwhile, has largely subdued his dissenting nobles and might soon have a united Normandy in his grasp at last. But there are powerful forces further afield, growing jealous of the Duke’s increasing might and wealth, won as much through diplomacy and subterfuge as in open conflict. There are bloody battles to be fought, legacies to be secured, and the tides of power and influence are rarely still – as William’s stature grows, the circle of those he can trust, shrinks. While beyond the English Channel, William has received news of Edward’s astonishing decree regarding the succession. Ælfgifa, receiving news of her father, Jarl Godwin’s death, returns to an England where a steady undercurrent of discontent bubbles beneath the surface calm. An England that may soon erupt in conflict as one king dies and another is chosen.

The ambitions of two powerful men will decide the fates of rival cultures in a single battle that will change England, Europe and the world – Hastings.